Author Bio

Steve Williams has the passion for helping companies interested in Getting to Great. He's spent the first half of his career in senior management with a number of highly successful manufacturing companies, and the second half in strategic sourcing managing a global supply base of custom fabricators.

Steve is the author of the book Survival Is Not Mandatory: 10 Things Every CEO Should Know About Lean.

The Right Approach: The Founding Fathers of Quality—W. Edwards Deming

This column begins a series of seven installments, each highlighting one of the seven founding fathers of quality (as selected by the author). It is important to understand and acknowledge their revolutionary contributions that still form the foundation of modern quality practices.

The Founding Fathers of Quality

Companies like Toyota are often touted (with good reason) as the gold standard for quality system models. Toyota’s production system (TPS) has been highly publicized and gained increasing acceptance in American manufacturing operations over the last decade or so. What has not been highly publicized is the fact that many of these concepts originated in America, and quality pioneers like Dr. W. Edwards Deming had to take their show on the road to Japan only after being rejected by the leaders of American industry. The contributions of such legends as Dr. Deming, Dr. Juran, Philip Crosby, Dr. Ishikawa, Dr. Shewhart, and Shigeo Shingo had such an impact on the world that they truly are the founding fathers of modern quality.

Dr. W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993)

Dr. Deming is perhaps best known for his theory that most problems are systemic and his not-so-subtle reminder that management owns the system. In emphasizing management’s responsibility for systems, Dr. Deming noted that workers are responsible for only 10–20% of the quality problems in a factory and that the remaining 80–90% is under management’s control—the systems. This position was a bit revolutionary for America in the 1950s and was a major reason his philosophy was not well-received when originally introduced.

To read this entire column, which appeared in the December 2019 issue of PCB007 Magazine, click here.

2019

This column begins a series of seven installments, each highlighting one of the seven founding fathers of quality (as selected by the author). Steve Williams explains why it is important to understand and acknowledge their revolutionary contributions that still form the foundation of modern quality practices.

How do you overcome resistance and gain employee buy-in when implementing a new initiative, especially one that is generally seen as dry and boring, such as a quality management system? Follow Law 2 from Quality 101 Handbook: The Biggest Little Book on Quality You’ll Ever Need. For the sake of continuity, Law 1 states, “Never fear an unexpected customer visit.” If every employee lives and breathes the quality system every day, there will never be a need for an audit-prep panic. In this column, I will focus on Law 2.

In six short years, millennials will make up around 50% of the global working population. With our ever-increasing culture of information overload since the mobile revolution began, attention spans have been shrinking. While millennials seem to be the subject of much of the reporting on Digital-Age attention spans, the effect can be seen across all age ranges. How can you train anyone in this environment? Read on.

While M2M and H2M connectivity are the primary focus of Industry 4.0, the true underlying benefit of Industry 4.0 comes in the form of machine-to-business (M2B) connectivity or the "machine-as-a-service" concept. This is changing the way we purchase equipment.

Today, most of us have used some kind of wearable device to monitor our steps, exercise, heart rate, etc. However, as an eight-year-old watching Star Trek with my dad and younger brother in the late 1960s, this wearable technology would have been thought to be crazy.

2018

Global sourcing is a complex process and choosing a supplier is always an important decision. The higher the technology, the more important the process for choosing the right one. Considering the highly complicated process of manufacturing printed circuit boards, these guidelines will assist in your decision.

As our industry continues to evolve and shape-shift, printed circuit board manufacturing continues to shrink through consolidations and attrition. Unfortunately, this trend will most likely continue, albeit at a slower pace than over the last decade. In what has truly become a global economy, partnering with worldclass suppliers is mandatory, and excluding a sub-set of this dwindling supply base because they also happen to be in a crossover business will severely hinder this effort.

While this list is not all-inclusive, it will give organizations an idea of what they are signing up for by pursuing IATF 16949 QMS certification. The standard is very demanding and requires a high level of discipline, but as they say, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger!”

I have been on the record for the past 10 years saying that jobs we lost overseas may move out of China to a new low-cost country, but they were never coming back. I have never been happier to be wrong! I talk to a lot of CEOs, and the first question I ask is, “How’s business?” The answers are overwhelmingly positive, and it is clear that their optimism is at a level not seen for over a decade. America as a low-cost country. Think about that.

No matter where my travels take me, I hear a wide and limitless supply of excuses for why Lean will not work in “my” organization. One of my favorite ways of illustrating that Lean will indeed work anywhere is to take a Lean look at a very unlikely organization, Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

Any major initiative, whether implementing ISO, lean manufacturing or introducing a new product, requires culture change. How this change is managed will be the difference between success or failure of the project. This column will offer some fundamental elements that will help navigate your next major implementation by shifting the culture.

2017

Being a quality professional today is nothing like it was 20 or 25 years ago; on a personal level, I can attest to this fact. It is no longer adequate to appoint a quality manager simply based on a person’s command of acceptance criteria and industry specifications; in the 21st century, a truly hybrid executive is needed.

Change is a given. While this adage may be quite true and normally a good thing, it can wreak process engineering havoc in a printed circuit operation. Change is good, but the operative word is controlled change relative to the complex processes involved in manufacturing a printed circuit board.

“When did this happen?” I asked myself during a recent visit to my men’s only barber shop as I noticed that my $10 haircut was now $14. While I vaguely remember the price going up a little every couple of years, I really hadn’t been paying attention. This caused me to revisit an article I wrote 10 years ago and research whether this 40% cost increase was reasonable.

Owners of printed circuit board shops across the country are united in their top concern for their businesses: finding new talent. While this problem crosses all industries, what is unique is the complexity and learning curve of our business.

Regardless of which side of the political fence you fall on, what matters most around any election are the policy implications. Taking the partisanship out of politics and looking strictly at the Trump policy promises, there is cause for optimism in business.

2016

I have been in leadership positions for the majority of my 40-year career, but it has not always been a smooth and natural relationship. With the following three stories, I will attempt to share the lessons learned on my journey as a lifelong student in pursuit of the art of leadership.

Unless you are currently building aerospace product to AS9100[1] you are probably saying, “What the heck is FOD?” What started out as a requirement to prevent damage to aircraft parts such as engines has been flowed down to any component or assembly including PCBs.

In March, at the 2016 IPC APEX EXPO show in Las Vegas, the next big thing everyone was talking about was the Internet of Things (IoT). Equipment manufacturers were standing in line to tout their machines as IoT-capable and just waiting for the industry to catch up. But the IoT has been at play in our personal lives for quite a while…

Handling is often the source of many pain points for PCB fabricators, resulting in rework, scrap and customer returns. Quick & Easy 6S is a fantastic tool to minimize handling risk by reducing product travel and improving shop cleanliness.

One of the fascinating things about Best Practices is that it is occurring everywhere—and many times without the knowledge of the person or organization doing it! How can this be? Most best practice principles fall under a very old-fashioned ideal that some of us still remember: common sense.

Identifying and fixing problems instead of foolishly trying to “inspect in quality” by sorting will have a greater impact on profit than raising prices your product, hammering your suppliers for lower costs or most any other traditional profit enhancement initiatives an organization can implement.

2015

Many companies get caught in data traps. They focus so heavily on cost and survival that they end up using data as merely a marketing and sales tool. In doing so, they fail to realize the true power of data: It can transform every aspect of a business.

Lean, theory of constraints, quick response manufacturing, cross training, and SPC are powerful, tried and true methodologies for process improvement--but they are rooted in high-volume manufacturing environments and don't always play nice in a high-mix, low-volume operation. This article talks about the new WORK manufacturing strategy specifically developed to overcome these shortcomings while capitalizing on their strengths.

You could say that today's automobile is a "computer on wheels," but from a point of accuracy it would be more like 35 computers on wheels. With printed circuit boards being the backbone of our electronic products, this is major market segment for our industry. In this article, Steve Williams writes about the evolution of automotive electronics, and the future of the industry.

The shift away from vertical integration has pushed the topic of supply chain management to the forefront of strategic planning for many manufacturers. This wide-ranging article talks about supply chain management, a brief history of supply chain innovation, managing supply chain risk, as well as presents the "7 Rights" of supply chain management.

One roadblock to achieving the true benefits of best practices is that traditional improvement efforts have always focused on reducing the time of value-added steps; in other words, reducing the amount of time it takes to do something to a product, or touch time.

Not every process is a good candidate for statistical control, and that in these instances, alternate process control methods may be required. Steven Williams talks about continuous improvement when it comes to process capability.

2014

Close to 50 years after Dr. Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy of the Starship Enterprise first used a fictional tricorder to scan patients for ailments and anomalies, real-world medical science is turning that science fiction into a reality.

"Looking back through the annals of the U.S. PCB industry, when it comes to quality, we have evolved from a reactive, to a proactive mindset. This evolution has led to what is loosely called the zero-defects methodology. The old gold standard of three sigma is no longer acceptable and has gone the way of the dinosaur," writes Columnist Steve Williams.

Columnist Steve Williams writes, "Fresh out of training, the value stream mapping (VSM) team often runs out and starts mapping the first process they see. While VSM, if anything, is better than nothing, efforts should be focused on the critical processes having the greatest impact on the product."

Process flow diagrams are a great first step, but they don't tell the entire story. Value stream maps add one critical ingredient that standard process flowcharts don't have: Time. Process flowcharts do not capture this important element. They simply present a snapshot of the sequence of steps in the process. Time is essential to understanding how one operation affects another and where your resources are being spent.

In the global economy that is today's business environment, there are no guarantees. The need for best practices is present in every industry, but mandatory in technology industries such as PCB manufacturing. In this new series, Columnist Steve Williams conveys personal lessons gained through his involvement with more than 1,000 manufacturing companies.

What does it mean to be world-class? It means being on par with the top performers globally in your chosen craft. There are, of course, numerous quantitative metrics used to measure this, such as turnover, quality certifications, productivity, and the requisite financial ratios. But perhaps the most important metric is qualitative: How do your customers think you're doing?

Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, made the following salient proclamation more than 50 years ago: "It's all to do with the training: You can do a lot if you're properly trained." What has held true through the ages is not a secret; people perform better when properly trained.

In the drive to continuous improvement, while Lean is one of the most powerful tools available to organizations, it is also one of the most underutilized. Columnist Steve Williams offers a primer for companies considering the Lean journey.

After a very challenging year for the domestic PCB industry, global business conditions are slowly improving. Columnist Steve Williams takes a look back at 2013 and also looks forward to what we can expect for the rest of 2014.

2013

New blood, a fresh set of eyes, or an outside perspective: No matter what you call it, the right consultant can add exponential value to any organization. How can you make sure you choose the right consultant and avoid the wrong one?

In September of last year, columnist Steve Williams wrote about the potential of 3D printing to "save" American manufacturing, as it was quickly becoming the new industry buzzword. Fast forward a year and it is clear that 3D printing may be here to stay and not just another passing fad.

Change is a given. While this adage may be quite true and normally a good thing, it can cause havoc in the documentation system of a printed circuit operation. To be successful, there must be a formal methodology to handle process change.

Columnist Steve Williams writes, "It occurred to me after reading an article in a local paper recently that solid management fundamentals are timeless and cross all industries. It is critical that an organization have a foundation based on a practical management game plan to be in the chase for excellence."

Continuous improvement is a journey, and as with most things worthwhile, needs to be an integral part of an organization's everyday life. It can only come from people, motivated and committed, learning what they can learn, solving problems that they can solve, and implementing solutions that they develop.

One of the most powerful tools in the operational improvement toolbox is not something you can put your hands around, but, if mastered, it can take organizational performance to a new level. Highly-effective teams can make the difference between step function improvement and abject failure.

2012

More than 50 years ago, American industry rejected the manufacturing tools and techniques of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, while most of Asia welcomed and ran with this guidance. While this has slowly changed, a couple of important concepts still have not been embraced here in the U.S.

It is worth taking a look back at the span of six years, and the regulatory implications to our industry stemming from one regulation that has impacted the electronics industry in a mighty big way: RoHS.

3D printing is a hot topic right now, especially with equipment prices dropping and reports of this incredible technology entering the consumer marketplace. With its origin in the additive process of PCB manufacturing, will this technology save American manufacturing?

As we all look to improve our manufacturing organizations in 2012 and become leaner and meaner, the fictitious canoe story is a reminder to focus on the right things and concentrate on activities that will improve the bottom line.